Olympic medal winner Nino Salukvadze to head upcoming Museum of Georgian Sport

Georgia's nine-time Summer Olympic Games participant and three-time Olympic medal winner Nino Salukvadze will head the planned Museum of Georgian Sport, with the Minister of Culture, Sport and Youth, Thea Tsulukiani, announcing the appointment along with other details on the museum project on Wednesday.

Salukvadze, who won gold and silver in shooting sport at the 1988 Games in Seoul as well as bronze in Beijing in 2008, is now the director of the projected venue that will preserve and showcase exhibits of sporting achievements and history of the country.

The appointment follows plans around creating an exhibition space of the museum itself, set in motion following a reorganisation of museums under the culture ministry's management earlier this year.

Nino Salukvadze (front right) was the co-bearer for the Georgian flag at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Summer Games. Photo via lelo.ge.

The ministry's aim is to have the silverware, medals and other exhibits illustrating brilliant victories of the Georgian sport not [locked away] in boxes, but make them available for fans and sportspeople [in the planned venue]

- Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth of Georgia

In the reorganised structure, the sport museum will be a separate entity and receive a space for displaying exhibits currently preserved at the Georgian National Museum. The items were placed in vaults of the GNM in 2018 and are currently not on display.

They now come under the management of Salukvadze, who became the only woman athlete to qualify for nine Summer Olympic Games when she gained her spot for the 2020 Tokyo Games back in 2019. In the Japanese capital, she was the co-bearer for the Georgian national flag at the opening ceremony.

She will also sit on the four-person management board that will oversee the new structure of museums administered by the ministry. The directorate's work will be coordinated by the General Director of the GNM network.